Revenue official booked in forgery case

Amritsar, June 18 (IANS) A controversial revenue official in Punjab, who had last year made a fraudulent power of attorney for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Race Course Road official residence, was Tuesday booked by the Punjab Police for his role in another fraud. The police registered a case of forgery against tehsildar Rajesh Sharma following a complaint from the district revenue officer.

Sharma has been charged with conniving with three other persons, Jasbir Singh, Rajwinder Singh and G.S. Khara, in preparing fake land deal papers of a prime piece of land.

The tehsildar was suspended last week after a US-based non-resident Indian (NRI) family filed a complaint with district officials against Sharma and others for conniving to sell nearly 11 acres of their prime land near here. The family claimed that their land was worth nearly Rs.3 billion in the property market.

Police said that cases had been registered against Sharma earlier too.

Sharma was last year involved in a controversy after he accepted a bribe to prepare a fake power of attorney of the official residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in New Delhi. He was suspended then but was reinstated by the ruling Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.